The Raven
by Alice Indigo Opal
Summary: John's partial psychopathy in Sherlocks's absence exists more than he is willing to admit to anyone-especially himself. And yet, here is a black silhouette on a dreary, grey background atop a building... Rated T for limited bad language and a soldier's nightmares. *Spoilers up to TRF.*


**A/N: Writing things like this scares me. Leaves me rattled. Haunted.**

**Many thanks for visiting.**

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John looks up, finally spotting his friend. He is... atop a building. Out of place, though somehow he sort of blends in with the altitude. He is a black silhouette in a coat on a dreary, grey backdrop. His friend stands tall, his idiosyncrasies like a rod in his back, as he speaks to John on the phone, looking down, down, down. One arm is raised, bent to his ear, a mobile phone in his chilled, steady palm.

He's talking.

_That's what people do, don't they? Leave a note..._

John looks on, now with trepidation and confusion.

No. No, no, no. That's not what this is. Notes are for goodbyes. This isn't a note. Not that kind. This isn't a goodbye. It's not.

_But oh, dear Watson, it is._

John is unaware of his own danger. Of the peril he and his companions are in. It is mutual among them, and they are unaware.

Unaware of the sacrifice.

Unaware of the truth.

Unaware of—

_Goodbye, John._

As usual, John heard but did not listen.

The phone was tossed aside, no longer needed... The tall man looked down, down, down.

The liar stood atop Saint Bart's, a building forced against its will through a cookie cutter and into the shape of a murder weapon. Fiction dripped from his Cupid's bow lips like blood.

_Nobody could be that clever._

A lie.

_You could._

The truth.

Him. The black silhouette in a coat on the dreary, grey backdrop. Collar turned up.

He's that clever. Him. The silhouette.

He leans forward.

_Of course it was. It was extraordinary. It was quite extraordinary._

John looks on, now with paralysing fear and advancing panic, a hideous and unpredictable combination.

But then:

The interruption.

_That's not what people normally say._

He jumps.

No.

Not jumps.

Falls.

_What do people normally say?_

It's not spectacular. It's not prideful. Not imperious.

In fact, it is the exact opposite of every other damned thing he has ever done in his life:

It's shameful.

He tumbles.

_[A smile. No, a smirk.] Piss off._

For a moment, a second in the abyssal absence of breath, John is surprised. Lips parted. He looks on, now with hopeless, frozen shock.

His friend is the man that knows all. Controls everything. No one is in charge of him. Nothing affects him.

Not physically. He's never sick, never hungry, never tired. Many days at a time are spent contracted into his brain, deduction upon deduction, silent and nonreactive. Controlled.

Not mentally. For God's sake, the man hosts an endless palace in his mind and manages to find a serial killer something to look forward to. Death is practically his reason to live.

Not emotionally. He's never happy. Never sad. There is only one colour that paints his black-and-grey spectrum. Anger, of course, is a constant. But John likes to think that he left the womb with that silent, brooding scowl fixed upon his porcelain features.

He pities everyone that is not him. Looks down on them. Now, atop it all, atop the building, he is the world's most sarcastic and annoying consulting detective.

He is sardonic.

Sadistic.

Arrogant.

Commanding.

The most brilliant man in the world. The man that is_ that clever._

But not this.

How does such an overpowering man allow gravity to even _dare _to affect him like this?

And so he falls.

He tumbles.

It is horrific.

John, a trained militant of good days and bad, a _surgeon (_for God's sake!), once a witness of all that was red and metal...

is horrified.

Until—

A change.

In a flash of feathers, his friend is a raven, large and obsidian-purple in the sky.

_He is a black silhouette on a dreary, grey backdrop._

He swoops painlessly towards the ground, veering upwards after a second. Gravity obeys his every command like a favoured hound.

_Ah_. Now that's more like him.

John's friend is free. Free of his damning life, in which his only happiness (or so it was thought of him) was to tower over others.

Even though he is the tallest man in London that day, Saint Bart's above all others, he is deceivingly the smallest. He appears a coward, a man unable to retain a hold on his own sticky web of lies. He seems the saddest. The most fearful as well. But of course, he is the cleverest of them all.

And now:

A raven.

The bird turns.

Turns away.

And John reaches out weakly, not wanting this to be goodbye. This can't be how it ends. Christ, this isn't it.

And then his friend is gone, flown away.

You could call it a miracle. A dream.

A survival.

You could also call it a nightmare.

Because it's happened before.

Many times, in fact.

Yes, for the thousandth time, John is cold and alone, having woken up in the same bloody bed as always, shivering, having dreamt the same bloody dream. The sheets are tied in knots on the floor, John's final comfort resting in its own grave.

His skin is slick, his soldier's muscles taut. He is shaking. Vibrating. Living. His heart is racing. He is breathing. Alive. Oh, he is so hatefully alive. He manages to be disgusted with himself amidst his panic.

_The nerve._

Will he tell his dear therapist about it this time?

A spiting grin, sharp in the darkness and loud in the silence.

The corners of his mouth droop into a silent scream, terror again tightening every muscle in his body. He spasms.

No. Of course not.

He rocks back and forth gently.

She doesn't understand.

No one does. Not her, not Greg, not Sally, and not even Molly or Mrs. Hudson.

They never knew John's friend, not like he did. They will never know the black silhouette on a grey, dreary backdrop.

But of course, maybe John didn't know him, either.


End file.
